She’s been gardening since she was about 7 or 8 years old, starting with her great grandmother, and it’s stuck with her.

“It’s religious,” she said. “It’s very relaxing for me, and for me, I feel closer to God there.”

Lancaster, thanks to the suggestion of her husband Cory Lancaster, has tried a new way of gardening this year — using raised beds. And these beds, built to about waist height, make her gardening a whole lot easier.

“My husband just said let’s raise them up where you can reach them better,” she said.

Shawn Lancaster stands by her tall cherry tomato plant.

The wooden raised beds, built by Clay VanWagoner Builders, are four by eight feet each.

She has all kinds of vegetables in her extensive garden, located in her side yard on Lawn Street in Alpena. She has everything from acorn squash to zucchini in the six beds. She has beans, onions, carrots, cucumbers, peppers, several varieties of lettuce, and more. She even has strawberries. She also has huge tomato plants in six different varieties. Tomatoes love the sun, so the heat has been good to them this year.

Lancaster is enjoying gardening even more than usual since putting in the raised beds this spring. She said they are easier to access and she can garden for longer periods of time since she is not cramped on her knees in the dirt.

“I was all set to go back into the regular garden, but he said ‘Hold on,'” she said of her husband. And she is very grateful for that. “I like it. It was a very nice surprise.”

She recommends raised garden beds to anyone.

Here is another variety of tomato she has growing in her raised bed garden.

“It’s so easy to get to,” she said. “All you’ve got to do is walk through and grab a weed here and there … It’s 100 percent easier.”

The plants are doing great, she added.

“I think they’re growing just about as good as ever,” Lancaster said. “I haven’t put any fertilizer in anything out there, and they’re just overgrowing.”

She said the placement of the garden on the side of her house is a big factor. That area gets a lot of sun. It’s on the south side of her house.

And she enjoys flower gardening too.

Shawn Lancaster stands in the middle of her garden, which has six raised beds. She said it’s easier to get to the plants, and she enjoys gardening even more now that she had the raised beds put in this year.

“Vegetables are OK,” she said. “But I love my flower beds.”

She said she tries to spend at least three to four hours a day out in the garden — her sanctuary.

“It’s always relaxed me,” she said of gardening. “For as long as I can remember.”